The present invention relates to a 3'-deamino-3'-(2"-substituted-4"-morpholino) derivative of 13-deoxo-10-hydroxycarminomycin (hereinafter referred to as "R20X2") which is an anthracycline compound having antitumor activity.
Anthracycline compounds heretofore known are, for example, daunomycin (U.S. Pat. No. 3,616,242) and adriamycin (U.S. Pat. No. 3,590,028) obtained from the culture broths of actinomycetes, and these compounds are widely used for clinical purposes as antitumor agents.
Yoshimoto et al. obtained R20X2 which exhibits antitumor activity from the culture broth of Streptomyces sp. D-788 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Pub. No. 33194/1986).
Further, various derivatives of adriamycin, daunomycin and carminomycin were synthesized as morpholino derivatives of anthracycline compounds and have been reported to have antitumor activity (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Pub. No. 163393/1982; U.S. Pat. No. 4,301,277; Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Pub. No. 212484/1984; and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Pub. No. 212499/1984).
We also synthesized morpholino derivatives of 13-deoxocarminomycin, 13-deoxo-11-deoxycarminomycin and 13-deoxo-10-hydroxycarminomycin (R20X2) and have reported that these compounds possess remarkable antitumor activity (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Pub. Nos. 167696/1986 and 16495/1987 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,710,564).
Anthracycline compounds form a group of useful antitumor agents, so that there has been constant demand for better anthracycline compounds.